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Porridge, Milk, French
Soak two ounces of oatmeal in half a pint of water. When the oatmeal has settled at the bottom and left the water clear, strain off, and add the same quantity of fresh water, which should rest till the next day, and then be passed through a fine sieve into a saucepan. When boiling, pour in the milk, and serve. This makes a wholesome breakfast for a delicate stomach. Time, half an hour to boil. Probable cost, 4d. per pound.
This is not porridge in the Scottish sense but a thin oatmeal drink, made by leaching starch out of the grain over two days and discarding the solids. The technique is the whole point, and it needs some interpretation.
- What you are actually makingThe oatmeal itself is never eaten. You are extracting soluble starch into water, then thickening that water over heat and finishing it with milk. Expect something between a thin gruel and a drinkable barley water, not a bowl of oats.
- The two-water soakThe first soaking water is poured off once the meal has sunk and the liquid above is clear; fresh water goes on and stands overnight. Do the soaking in the refrigerator rather than on a counter, since a starchy slurry left at room temperature for a day will sour.
- Oatmeal, not rolled oatsNineteenth-century oatmeal means dry stone-ground meal, coarse or medium. Pinhead or steel-cut oats work; modern rolled oats give a cloudier, gummier extract because they have been steamed and pressed.
- The milk quantity is not givenThe original never says how much milk. For 2 oz oatmeal and half a pint (about 1 1/4 US cups) of water, roughly half a cup to a cup of milk gives a drinkable consistency. Add it off the boil or barely simmering, and do not let it catch on the pan.
- Half an hour of boilingThat is a long time for so little liquid; presumably it serves to reduce the liquid and gelatinise the starch. Use a heavy pan on low heat, stir often, and top up with a spoonful of water if it thickens past pouring.
- UnitsHalf a pint in a British book of this period is 10 fl oz, about 1 1/4 US cups. Two ounces of oatmeal is roughly a third to a half cup, depending on the cut.
- SeasoningNone is specified, in keeping with its sick-room purpose. A pinch of salt makes it palatable; sugar, honey or a strip of lemon peel in the boiling stage are all period-appropriate additions.
- YieldOne serving, roughly a large cupful. The "4d. per pound" most likely refers to the price of oatmeal rather than the cost of the finished dish.
This belongs among the thin, strained preparations that Victorian households kept for invalids, infants and anyone recovering from illness — the same family as gruel, barley water and beef tea. The logic behind straining away the grain was that starch dissolved in water was thought easier on "a delicate stomach" than the fibrous meal itself, and the phrase in the last line is the recipe's real purpose. The "French" label distinguishes it from Scottish porridge, where the meal is eaten. It is a reminder that before the twentieth century the kitchen doubled as the pharmacy: a general cookbook was expected to tell the cook what to feed the sick as routinely as what to serve at dinner.